Section 11

11. In childhood the main activity is in the Couplement and
there is but little irradiation from the higher principles of our
being: but when these higher principles act but feebly or rarely
upon us their action is directed towards the Supreme; they work upon
us only when they stand at the mid-point.

But does not the include that phase of our being which stands
above the mid-point?

It does, but on condition that we lay hold of it: our entire
nature is not ours at all times but only as we direct the mid-point
upwards or downwards, or lead some particular phase of our
nature from
potentiality or native character into act.

And the animals, in what way or degree do they possess the
Animate?

If there be in them, as the opinion goes, human Souls that have
sinned, then the Animating-Principle in its separable phase does not
enter directly into the brute; it is there but not there to
them; they
are aware only of the image of the Soul [only of the lower Soul] and
of that only by being aware of the body organised and determined by
that image.

If there be no human Soul in them, the Animate is constituted
for them by a radiation from the All-Soul.